25 FEB 2009
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* Airline: All 134 survive plane crash in Amsterdam
*20 Hurt as Turkish Plane Crashes in Amsterdam
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Airline: All 134 survive plane crash in Amsterdam
AP - The tail of a Turkish Airlines aircraft is seen after it slammed into a
field while attempting to land . AMSTERDAM - A Turkish Airlines plane with
134 people aboard slammed into a field and broke into three pieces while
attempting to land at Amsterdam's main airport on Wednesday. The airline
said everyone on board survived.
A Dutch medical center spokesman said it was treating seven injured.
Flight TK1951 left Istanbul's Ataturk Airport at 8:22 a.m. (0622 GMT) bound
for Amsterdam. The Boeing 737-800 crashed next to a runway at Schiphol
Airport, police spokesman Jaap Hage told The Associated Press.
In Turkey, Candan Karlitekin, head of the airline's board, said all 127
passengers and seven crew members survived the crash. Turkey's Transport
Minister Binali Yildirim had earlier said there were 135 passengers and
eight crew.
Last month, all 155 people on board a US Airways Airbus A320 survived a
crash landing in the Hudson River after striking a flock of birds.
Dutch television images showed police and rescue workers swarming around the
wreckage and ambulances rushing to and from the scene. Both of the plane's
engines were torn off and lay around 100 yards (100 meters) from the remains
of the fuselage.
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20 Hurt as Turkish Plane Crashes in Amsterdam
A Turkish Airlines passenger plane lay broken in a field after it attempted
to land at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Wednesday.
PARIS - A Turkish Airlines jet carrying 134 people crashed into a field on
its approach to Schiphol Airport outside Amsterdam on Wednesday. The airline
said all passengers and crew had survived but at least 20 people were
injured.
Television pictures showed the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, lying fractured
into three parts after it slammed into the grass about 3 miles from the
runway. The aircraft did not catch fire.
Initial reports said that one person died in the wreckage. But The
Associated Press quoted Turkish Airlines as saying that there were no deaths
among the 127 passengers and seven crew on the plane, Turkish Airlines
flight TK1951, that left Istanbul at 8:22 a.m. on Wednesday.
Temel Kotil, the chief executive of the airline, said at a news conference
in Istanbul that 20 people were injured in the accident.
The crash took place in calm weather with a light drizzle. Unlike a deadly
accident in Madrid last summer when a Spanair flight crashed while taking
off, no fire broke out during Wednesday's crash.
The Turkish aircraft would have been low on fuel as it approached its
destination.
Rescue operations were continuing at the crash site and 80 passengers had
been evacuated from the plane, Binali Yildirim, the Turkish transportation
minister, said on NTV, a private television station in Turkey.
"The plane has been through all required security controls," Mr. Yildirim
said.
Tuncer Mutlucan, a passenger who survived the crash, told NTV, "It was the
back of the plane that hit the ground. We left the plane from the back. My
colleague and I saw people stuck in between seats as we were trying to leave
and we tried to help them."
" It all happened in something like ten seconds," Mr. Mutlucan said.
Turkish Airlines officials said that there were 20 injured but no dead.
Dutch authorities had earlier reported one fatality.
Candan Karlitekin, the chairman of Turkish Airlines, said most of the 20
injured were seated at the back of the plane. "There was nothing
extraordinary about the weather conditions, vision capability was 4,500
meters. Around 500 meters away from the landing strip, the plane landed in a
field. The plane was broken into three parts, as you all saw in pictures.
There is no damage in the front, but injuries happened in the back of the
plane. There has not been any confirmed death, which we are pleased about."
Mr. Kotil said that the pilot, Hasan Tahsin Ari, was one of the airline's
most experienced pilots. The company was planning a flight from to Amsterdam
from Istanbul for relatives of the crash victims.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/world/europe/26amsterdam.html?hp
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/02/25/world/europe/25crash.600.jpg
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Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP
CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC